Difficulty getting CUPS to configure the printer
 

I am still having difficulty configuring my printer to work. I got some inital advice on the 'newbie' forum but no more help for 3 weeks, so please are there any oldies who could help me out?

I have a Pentium 3 and am running SuSE Linux 9,0 only (no windows) and have a perfectly good Epson Stylus Color 740 printer (connection to computer is fine).

The advice I got was:
Open a terminal and try the following:

su to root or login with root (the former is much safer)
type 'netstat -an | more' This displays all listening ports on your machine (ie. all services running open ports) and if cups is installed and running then you should see something like:
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:631 0.0.0.0:*
If it doesnt then either cups is not running or not installed. For the latter... try
typing 'rpm -qa | grep cups' and you should see something similar to (but not exactly the same as you are Suse and not Mandrake):
cups-1.1.20-5.1.100mdk
libcups2-1.1.20-5.1.100mdk
cups-common-1.1.20-5.1.100mdk
cups-drivers-1.1-138.2.100mdk

I did this and soure enough, CUPS is running. Previously I had some problem with my password to KDE/localhost 631 but that is fine now. I can go through the procedure of configuring the printer to kprinter which is to print using CUPS. But whether I do this in YaST or in localhost 631 does not seem to matter - neither sytem works. The printer prints either a few lines of rubbish and then blank sheets or whole pages of rubbish. Please help!

Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,

newbie 273chris

This may be the lppasswd problem. Here are some helpful links.

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2003/0...ichten-90.html

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/0...-nutshell.html

Have you seen the linuxprinting page here.

http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_pr...ylus_Color_740

Have you installed or configured the printer with the gimp-print driver? Hope something here helps.
good luck.

Do you have gimp-print installed this is the driver;gimp-print "stp" Does it show up in kde printer config,pick the cups gimp-print driver sometimes you will have other choice's but they are not good?I have that printer but it died on me plus the ink was so expensive I got a HP (cheap one 3650) because they have good drivers for linux,so I don't mind supporting them.Plus the ink is only $12 at wal-mart.

Hi all!

Thanks for your suggestions, Peacedog and comprookie2000!

Unfortunately I am not a techie so I do not understand the language on the sites suggested :(

I am really sorry. I hope I haven't wasted your time.

I did take your suggestions about gimp though and did the following:
I went into localhost:631 and deleted the printer there and added a new to start from scratch.
This is what it looked like:
EPSON Stylus Color 740, CUPS+Gimp-Print v4.2.5
Description:
Location:
Printer State: idle, accepting jobs.
"Printing page 0, 21%"
Device URI: parallel:/dev/lp0

In localhost 631 I configured the printer as
Epson
Parallet Port #1
Foomatic + gimp

In the CUPS printing dialogue box the button pre-selected was
CUPS (Common Unix Print System)
The printing came out as rubbish with no printjob queue either.

I then also tried configuring the printer in localhost:631 as
Epson
Parallet Port #1
CUPS + gimp-print

Again, in the CUPS printing dialogue box the button pre-selected was
CUPS (Common Unix Print System).
The printing came out as rubbish but there was a printjob queue this time.

If while in the CUPS dialogue box I selected any other button such as
Generic UNIX LPD Print System, or
LPR/LPrng Print System, then I got error messags and the printer did not budge at all.

I then used the KDE wizard in the CUPS printing dialogue box and went through the procedure of selecting drivers.
As what appearex to be drivers I could only see
Epson Stylus Color,
or
Epson Sytlus Color st

Selecting either one of these made no difference. The printing result was still rubbish when I pressed the 'Test' button during the KDE procedure.

Finally, although I did not touch YaST, I am wondering what role the YaST procedure has in the installation of a printer. Is this something I must also do?

Desperately hoping that this description may tell anyone reading this what is wrong and what I need to do. : )

sincerely

273chris

Hopefully this is a better link.

http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_dr...ylus_Color_740

good luck.

Hi Peacedog

Thanks, I looked at the site, and I tried to download the gimp-print driver there and succeeded in downloading it to a tmp area. However, how does one then get the operating system SUSE Linux to install this driver?

Cheers for now

273 chris

The ppd should go here.

/usr/share/cups/model/

Then this link should be of use.

http://www.cups.org/sam.html#MANAGING_PRINTERS

good luck.

Hi Peacedog

In the file are a lot of instructions. I know nothing about this, but have the vague idea that there should be no instructions but 'pure'
programming-type language?

I have tried to cut and paste th file to this box to show you, but it did not work. The file starts off as instructions, and then goes into other stuff.
Is this the right file, and what part of it do I insert into /usr/share/cups/model, and how will it be picked up by the OS and used?
Also, the text warns against merely cutting and pasting. My worry is: even if one uses 'save as' as the instructions point out, will that just automatically work if it is plonked down in /usr/share/cups/smodel?

Thanks again.
273 chris

http://gentoo.vidalinux.com/files/pr...rivers.tar.bz2
Download these drivers and install them with
su
password
# cp printers-drivers.tar.bz2 /usr/share/cups/
cd /usr/share/cups
# tar xvfj printers-drivers.tar.bz2
Then reconfigure at localhost:631 might get lucky

Hi comprookie2000

I get an error message when trying to download to /usr/share/cups/

The error message is that usr does not allow write.

When I boot the machine, I have always wondered about a note in the list that chugs down while the machine is booting, which says
'File system seems mounted read-only. Skip replay'

Are these two things connected and that is why I cannot dowload the file to /usr ??
If so, how do solve the read-only problem?

I really appreciate your help!

273chris

Download to your home directory, then follow comprookie2000's instructions.

The directory /usr/share/cups/ is owned by root, that's why the user cannot download to it directly.
good luck.

Hi Peacedog

Thanks for the advice.
Did I make an error?
I downloaded the file to the following address:
file:///home/pcs/bin/

When I opened the kernel, put in su, entered my password so that the # sign came up, I immediately entered the first command
comprookie2000 gave me.
The answer I got was:
cp: cannot stat 'printers-drivers.tar.bz2' : No such file or directory
cp: cannot stat 'usr/share/cups/cd' : No such file or directory

Hope you are still there.

sincerely

273chris

The simplest thing would be to download to your users /home/your user directory. Then from the terminal or konsole, you should be in that directory. Do ls to list all files and insure that it's there. Then proceed with the su, etc. Have tried cd /home/pcs/bin/ and then an ls, to see if the file is there?
good luck.

Hi Peacedog and comprookie2000

I followed the original instructions as a guide and got the file installed in /usr/share/cups, and then I used the second command Comprookie2000 supplied, which was # tar xvfj printers-drivers.tar.bz2.
Loads of what appeared to be various printer types flashed past in one long list.

This was great! :)

However, I then configured the printer in localhost:631, and although I there named the printer Epson, when I selected the Epson printer from the printer menu, it only printed rubbish when I tried to print a document.

When I then selected <kprinter> as the printer in the printer menu instead, it brought up the CUPS dialog box, but even though I selected CUPS printing it still did not print sense.

Then I used the KDE wizard from inside the CUPS dialog box to configure the printer (by selecting <Epson Stylus Color 740 gimp-print> before trying to print out again using the CUPS dialog box but still the printer printed rubbish.

Also, now the printer won't stop printing rubbish because only root has the permission to stop it, and I do not know how to tell the printer to stop!

What should I do?

Thanks

273chris

I had the same printer do the same thing.The ink is like 30$ so I got a HP3650 works great @75$ and the ink is 12-15$.The printer worked for about 6 months then one day printed rubbush even on a reboot untill all the ink was gone.I don't know if the printer messed up or the drivers are not very good,but put that $#??.. printer to the curb and have had no problems with this printer,good luck